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Class Notes: 09/09/19

We start off class today with Prof. Holt asking the class about our weekends and making a comment about the party on the green; mentioning how Wooster is a small town and it’s not hard to hear things. Prof. Holt then goes on to talk about the email she sent the class for signing up to wikipedia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CreateAccount that included a link to join the class wiki) She asks if anybody had any advice for creating a wikipedia account and the general advice is to keep the username appropriate. Then Prof. Holt talked about how she uses her own name and believes that it is her obligation to not hide behind an anonymous name. She talks about how one student had issues changing the David Ortega KH: David Ortiz page because it is so disputed. Then we move onto questions about the primary source paper, and one of the questions is about a cover page/ word count and word count can be in the heading and cover page is optional. Then someone asked about how to cite the primary source from Wasserman’s book and Prof. Holt showed us this website (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/books.html.) Then Prof. Holt reminded the class about the history lecture on 09/10/19.

Dani begins LA in the News with an article titled Mexico Says It Has Cut the Number of Migrants Heading to the U.S. Dani tells the class that Mexico has sent members of the National Guard and police officers to the border to reduce the migrants heading to the U.S. When it comes to why Mexico decided to do this, it is because of Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico. Andrez Lopez, the president of Mexico, is facing criticism because of this decision partly because it is unethical and partly because it makes Mexico look like the U.S’s puppet. This decision also places migrants in danger, and Mexico has failed to meet their promise to return migrants to their homeland. Dani relates this article to one of the five criteria for a revolution which is tolerant world context. She wonders about the difference between the treatment of migrants in northern vs. southern Mexico because South Mexico is basically part of Central America. Prof. HoltAnother student suggested that migrants would probably be treated better in South Mexico.

Now the class begins in earnest. Prof. Holt puts up three questions: What were the key changes made in the 1917 Constitution? How well do changes to Agrarian Policy reflect Zapata and Villa’s goals? Those of Madero? How revolutionary are the changes and what criteria are used to define “revolutionary?” Here we have two key terms, 1917 Constitution and The Agrarian Law. The 1917 Constitution was the new constitution for Mexico after the revolution and was actually written during the revolution. The Agrarian Law (1915) was written by Victoriano Carranza and talks about the ownership of land with regards to villages. Prof. Holt asked the class what we thought about the Constitution and some notable things were the legal terms, the fact that a Constitution has multiple authors, when and why the constitution was written and about the workers’ rights shown in the Constitution.

Then we split into groups and begin discussion. My group talked about how the nation had the right to whatever land it wanted, as well as the nation’s right to give out private land. We talked about how depending on your perspective Zapata may have actually liked some of the land changes. When we discussed how revolutionary the changes were we realized that it depended on your perspective. From a U.S perspective, the changes weren’t particularly revolutionary but, when compared to the previous system, the changes were drastic. It went from unregulated to well-regulated. For question 2 we didn’t have very much to say, the changes were pretty revolutionary and we all liked them and we thought it was kind of funny how the Constitution that was written in the middle of a revolution allowed for unionization. The group ended with Prof. Holt gaining our attention. She asked the class about different evaluations about what we read and some key points are that the language was very technical, there was a juxtaposition between maternity leave in the U.S and everywhere else in the world. Additionally, we also talked about the vaguely defined land, and the anticlerical sentiment during the revolution as well as how the compensation for land could be easily corrupted. We ended class with Prof. Holt telling us about what we would be doing on Wednesday and dismissing us.

Questions:

What is one way in which the more educated people in history have tricked less educated people with complex terms and sentence structures?

From a Latin American perspective, how does the difference in culture from the North to the South of Mexico affect their views on motherhood?

How can revolutionary leaders use language as an effective propaganda tool?